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“In you go, Beautiful,” he says, letting me into the car. I quickly put my seatbelt on because I tend to forget. Unable to stop myself from smiling, I beam at Levi as he walks around to his seat.
“You really can be such a good girl for me, Little Sinner,” he murmurs as he starts the car. Music starts to play, and I hum along to it. As song after song plays, I realize they’re all my favorites.
Levi Madden really is a romantic. I’m so lucky I get to see this side of him.
Taking us to a drive-thru, he picks up donuts and coffee. Sipping on my drink, I close my eyes as the caffeine works its way through my system. Levi kept me up late, and then I didn’t sleep the best last night, so the coffee is much needed.
Getting lost in the gorgeous greenery, I lose track of time as Levi parks. There’s no one else around, and there’s this small ramp that takes us right through a grove of trees. Glancing at him curiously, I follow him through the trees. He has the donuts, and a blanket over his arm.
The tree tops overlap, and I look up at the sky, which is partially hidden by them. Sighing happily, I smile at the beauty surrounding me.
When we exit the trees, there is a wide plain filled with lavender flowers. Breathing deeply, I twirl as I giggle. The mountains provide a gorgeous backdrop behind the landscape.
“Wow,” I gasp, stopping my spinning to stare. “How did you find this place? How did you know this was here?!”
Levi smooths out the blanket, sitting down and opening his arms to me. Walking over, I drop down next to him, gasping as he hauls me into his lap.
“I do a lot of work for The Society that no one knows about,” he murmurs, smoothing back my hair. Pulling out a donut, he hands it to me, causing me to smile gently at him. “I help relocate people who are fleeing from difficult situations at home or domestic issues. I also pull out our people who are whistleblowers, when it’s no longer safe for them to be there. We have safe houses all over the world, and our reach is long.”
Leaning into him, I take a small bite of my bear claw. “I didn’t know that was part of your job,” I tell him. I really don’t know much about The Society at all.
“We dabble in illegal activities, like underground fighting and gambling, but there are things we draw the line at. I’m not really a priest.” He chuckles and I smirk. Deep down, I knew this. He is not really priest material.
“You pull it off well, though I feel like eating your student out over your desk doesn’t count as proper hours,” I tease him. Levi stares at me for a beat, as if I took him by surprise.
“Tempest is a very good influence on you,” he snickers. “I love watching you bloom now that you’re out from under your family. They had too much control over you, constantly threatening you. I may have a medical proxy over you, but I swear never to use it. I would dissolve it immediately if you wanted—”
Shrugging, I find it doesn’t bother me. “I know you’d never use it against me, Levi. If something happened and I needed someone to speak for me, I’d rather it be you,” I tell him honestly.
Nodding, he kisses my forehead. “What else does The Society do?” I ask.
“My father wants to talk to you about that when we get back. But I run the safe houses, the Adam initiates, and infiltrate where I’m needed. I’m a chameleon in many ways, and am able to slip into whatever role I’m needed to. The only reason the priest role is so ill-fitting recently is because you walked into my life like temptation incarnate.”
Chuckling, I finish my donut. “You do a lot for The Society,” I observe. “Do you play such a large role with the Adam initiates because of Jonas, Ash, and Bast?”
“In large part, yes. I became their mentor early on, and then they ended up at the Academy because of Ash’s rash decisions. The judge placed them all at Holy Cross, but they all would have ended up there one way or another. The Society planned it that way. There are only a few ways people end up at Holy Cross: they’re sentenced there so they don’t end up in jail, or their family pulls strings for them to attend,” he reveals.
This all makes perfect sense to me because my grandmother pushed for my attendance.
“Since we’re revealing secrets,” he chuckles ruefully. “What’s one thing you’d tell me?”
Chewing my lip, I think about it. He knows so much about me already…
“My Angel’s father is an awful man,” I murmur. “Draven started coming to the house when I was fifteen, though he didn’t push for anything sexual until a little later. I have a feeling he likes girls who have difficulty saying no because it’s been driven into their minds to please others. I was in a really bad place when I was sixteen, and I would escape to a park after school.”
“That son of a bitch,” Levi growls and I shrug.
“I’m not telling you this so you’ll get upset,” I tell him sadly. “There was a boy in my town named Kingston, and I swear he saved my life that year. I was in a dark, dark place filled with pain and self-loathing, Levi. I couldn’t get the abuse to stop, as it got worse and worse, and I wanted to disappear. I had nothing to live for, not until I found out I was pregnant. King didn’t want anything from me. I was a ghost when he met me. I cringed when people touched me, and he helped me laugh again.”
“Why are you telling me, Chastity?” he asks softly, playing with the end of my hair as my head lays on his shoulder.
“Because… Isabella and Maxen managed to poison that too.” I sigh. “King was dating his stepsister, who is Tempest. When she found out I was her roommate at Holy Cross, she was livid. She thought I had told everyone Angel was King’s and that he had hurt me, but it was all a lie. King was my best friend, and I was happy he was with someone who made him happy. I just wanted some of the kindness he seemed to spread so easily. Isabella saw us in the square one day eating ice cream, after finding the pregnancy test, and decided he was the perfect fall man.”
“Oh, shit,” Levi says softly and I nod.
“Isabella told everyone King was a pervert. A mechanic who was too old for me, who pulled me astray from the Christian values they strictly enforced. None of that was true, of course, because Isabella and Maxen practically gave me to Draven. He’s a cold, cruel man, and every moment in his presence is a living nightmare,” I recall.
Pieces of what happened in the Adoption Agency are coming back, and I can’t believe I managed to live through it. “King was chased out of town back then, my baby was torn from my body when I delivered her, and four days later I was heavily medicated and shipped off to Hidden Hills. King's life was destroyed, all because he tried to be nice to the sad, broken girl.”
